A court in Geneva has extended a freezing order on some SFr7.6 million ($6.2 million) held by Haiti's former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier in Swiss banks. The move followed a legal appeal last week by lawyers acting for two former victims of the Duvalier regime. The extension took effect on Sunday, when the previous sequestration order was due to end. A senior legal official had warned last week that the Duvalier family was set to recover the assets on 3 June, claiming that the freeze would be allowed to lapse under legally imposed time limits. The money has been caught up in nearly two decades of legal and political wrangling since it was blocked in Switzerland at the request of Haiti's government after "Baby Doc" Duvalier was ousted from power in 1986. Mr Duvalier and his followers have been accused by Haiti's new government of siphoning off state funds, but Haitian authorities have so far failed to put together a legal case before Swiss courts to retrieve the money. The extension was applied for by lawyers acting for a Haitian priest and a taxi driver who were persecuted under the Duvalier regime and who are trying to have a 1988 US court ruling, which ordered the Duvaliers to pay them $1.75 million in damages, recognised in Switzerland. Their lawyers warned that other accounts were out of their reach and had urged federal authorities to extend their blanket decree on all Duvalier assets.